Political Parties in Burundi: Identity and Organizational Cohesion

Abstract

The article describes the system of Burundian political parties as it has formed after 1990. The ruling CNDD-FDD and the state security apparatus under its control systematically repress opposition activities. However, certain political parties maintain their organizational cohesion in spite of this pressure and continue to challenge the electoral authoritarian regime. The paper argues that explanations at the level of party organization and the society's identity divisions must be combined for the logic of the party system to unravel. The selective genocide of Hutus in 1972, the 1993-2004 civil war and the post-conflict liberal democratic faith gave birth to five collective identities, each represented by one political party. The CNDD-FDD works on strengthening its position by building a clientelistic state-party merger. The former single party UPRONA represents the interests of the Tutsi minority. The organizational cohesion of the remaining three parties in the system – FRODEBU, FNL and MSD – stands and falls with their thin networks of highly committed activists. The paper claims that these core structures emerge and maintain long-term cohesion only if the constituencies that the parties represent are sufficiently large, geographically spread and their collective identities sufficiently strong. The account is based on an analysis of general elections in 1993, 2005 and 2010 and fieldwork conducted in 2012.